Family Secrets
by NettieC
Summary: Every family has their secrets...What is David, Mac and Harm's son, up to and why is it a secret?


**Family Secrets**

**Just a quick St Patrick's Day story from me... To all the Irish, and those that wish they were, have a great day.**

March HBX Challenge

**_It is not a secret if it is known by three people._**

David Rabb was busy in his bedroom one Tuesday after school. His door was shut and he was accepting no visitors; much to his younger sister's dismay. After banging on his shut door and not getting her own way, Ruby stomped down the hallway back to the kitchen.

"Davy won't let me in!" she stated emphatically, her hands on her hips. "And I wanna play with him."

"What's he doing?" Mac asked, putting the pasta bake in the oven.

"I don't know, he won't tell me!" she said, less than impressed at the exclusion.

"Well, you'll just have to find something else to do," she replied opening the fridge.

"But I wanna play with Davy," Ruby insisted. "Make him play with me."

Mac just smiled and shook her head. "How about you set the table for dinner?" she replied, handing the child the placemats. Ruby looked at them, then her mother and sighed, this was not what she wanted to do at all. "Ruby, set the table please." With a 'humph' and 'grumph' she went about the task.

With her youngest occupied, Mac took the opportunity to sneak away and check on her son who had been very secretive in recent days.

"I said no, go away," David yelled when Mac knocked on his door.

"Excuse me?" Mac replied and instantly the door opened.

"Sorry, mom," he said sheepishly. "I thought you were Ruby. She's being a pain."

"She just wants some of your time," she said glancing around the room.

"I know but I'm real busy," he said gesturing to a mess of paper, pencils and assorted items on his desk.

"Doing what?" Mac asked, scanning the desk.

"Well, can you keep a secret?" he asked and Mac nodded. "Well, our homework was to do a project on a special day and 'cos it's St Patrick's Day soon and we are sort of Irish I figured do it."

Confusion crossed Mac's face, firstly because of the 'sort of Irish' comment and secondly, she couldn't fathom why it was a secret.

"What do you mean?" she asked walking across to the desk.

"Well, grandma's mom was Irish and she was from Dublin and she moved here when she was little," he said. "That's why grandma's name is Patricia, it's Irish."

"How do you know that?" she asked, surprised her son knew things she wasn't aware of.

"I phoned grandma last night and she's been helping me," David replied before sitting back at his desk.

"Why is it a secret though?" Mac questioned, impressed by the attention David was giving to his homework. Guiltily, David looked up at his mother not too sure how to answer. "David?"

"Because of dad," he said, his head dropping a little.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Before he could reply, Ruby came racing into the room. "Daddy's home and he says something's burning!"

With the conversation over, for now, Mac and David hurried to the kitchen to investigate what was burning. Thankfully, it was only the pasta bake as Mac had left the oven up too high.

"Oops," she said and Harm pulled the smoking mess from the oven and dropped it in the sink.

"Oops indeed," he replied, turning the faucet on and letting the cold water quench the smouldering mess.

"Sorry," she said. "Guess it's going to be takeout."

"Yay," came the chorus from her three children behind her. Takeout was usually better than anything mom made.

As soon as his chore of clearing the table was done and the last of the pizza was in the fridge, David disappeared to his room once more.

"Again, mommy," Ruby protested. "He's not playing with me again!"

"David is doing his homework," Mac said as she turned on the faucets for her younger children's bath.

"It's not homework," she insisted. "He said it was a secret and I wanna know."

"Well, missy," Mac said turning to face the five year old. "You don't always get what you want. Now, get ready for your bath."

Ruby muttered something as Mac walked out of the bathroom. "What's Ruby's problem?" Harm asked, meeting his wife just outside the bathroom door after catching the tail end of the conversation.

"David is doing homework in his room and Ruby is feeling quite put out about it," Mac replied, her arms circling his waist.

"He's been in their a bit lately," Harm said, one arm around his wife, the other hand gently caressing her face."

"Yeah," she agreed. "He says it's homework but his teacher doesn't give that much and he says it's a secret, so I don't know what he's up to."

As soon as Harm opened his son's bedroom door, David panicked and set about trying to cover up what he was doing; this was easily noted by his father.

"What's so secret, son?" he asked, remaining by the door.

"Nothing," he said, turning over the large piece of cardboard.

"Doesn't look like nothing to me," he replied, studying his son's flushed face.

"Well, it is something," he conceded. "But I don't want you to see it."

"Why not?" Harm asked, folding his arms.

"Cos you won't understand," came the matter-of-fact reply.

Rather than interrogate his son, Harm decided to wait until the boy had gone to sleep before investigating things further.

"I don't like the idea of snooping on our son," Mac whispered as they stood outside the boy's room a little before midnight.

"Neither do I," Harm agreed. "However, I also don't like the idea of him going to such lengths to hide things from us. If he's doing this at seven, god only knows what he'll be doing at 17."

With the aid of the soft glow of a security light, Harm crept over to the desk, scooped up the papers and cardboard and headed back out, trailing Mac to the kitchen table. There, he laid the items out and scanned the lot.

In childish scrawl, David had the title of 'St Patrick's Day' written in the middle of his poster, and then some brief sentences about his links to Ireland .Some hand drawn and print pictures representing all things Irish, and a half finished border of shamrocks around the edge.

"It's a great attempt by David," Mac said, picking up the poster.

"It is," Harm replied. "And it's good to see him paying such attention to his homework. I just don't get the secrecy.

"Me neither," Mac concurred before telling Harm what David had said when she first questioned him.

"My grandmother being Irish was never a secret," he said. "In fact, mom has a few Irish mementos around her house. I wonder what's going through his head."

With nothing able to be resolved, Mac and Harm headed to bed, but the following day when Mac had gone to work and the kids were all in school, Harm drove to La Jolla to see if his mom could shed any light on the situation.

"Your mom will be back in half an hour," Frank said as he poured his stepson a cup of coffee. "Anything I can help you with?"

After explaining the situation, Harm sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee.

"Well, from what your mom said after Davy had called her a couple of times, and from what you've said, I can only surmise he doesn't want you to know..." Frank began.

"Well, I know that," Harm said, putting his mug back on the table.

"Because..." Frank continued, "Your whole life has been about your dad and the Rabb side of the family. Young David probably feels he's betraying you, on some level, by doing his homework on Trish's family and not the Rabb side."

Shaking his head, Harm tried to take in what his stepfather was saying. Was it possible he's life had been so focussed on his father and father's family that even his seven-year-old had picked up on it?

"Of course, I could be wrong," Frank said picking up his coffee. "But it's how I see things...after all, I've been part of this family a lot longer than David and I can't recall a conversation about your mom's family which hasn't been prompted by the passing of someone."

"Mom has never said anything," he said quietly.

"She probably has her reasons for that," he replied. "After all, her parents both passed when you were still in diapers, she was an only child and the aunts and uncles she did have were scattered around the country. Your mom had a close relationship with Sarah, your paternal grandmother, and when your dad went MIA, they formed an even tighter bond. I guess they were the only family each other really had, except for you."

"I never really thought about it, you know," Harm said regretfully. "I never deliberately set out to ignore the Murphy side of the family."

"I know," Trish said, coming in behind him. "I never took it personally."

Quickly, Harm got to his feet and embraced his mother. "I'm really sorry, mom."

"Oh, honey," she replied. "There's nothing really to be sorry for."

"I should have been more aware, more interested in your side of the family," he said, his arms still around her.

"Ah, well, what's done is done," she said, letting him go and gesturing for him to sit once more. "Thanks," she said, taking a seat as Frank handed her a coffee.

"What surprises me," Frank said, taking his seat once more. "Is how David knew about the Irish side, given it's not a popular topic?

"I can answer that," Trish said with a smile. "David's teacher was talking about St Patrick's Day and said how Patrick and Patricia were matched names and very Irish. She explained how her grandmother's name was Patricia but everyone called her Trish. He phoned and asked me how I got an Irish name and I explained about my mom."

Rather than just having a conversation with his boy, Harm decided to take a different tack. So, with his parents and wife's help, the family arrived at Trish and Frank's house just before lunch on Saturday, St Patrick's Day.

"Wow!" exclaimed Ruby. "Everything's green."

Indeed it was. There were green balloons and streamers, a table set with a green tablecloth, green napkins and assorted green items. There were Irish artefacts on the flat surfaces, low enough for the younger children to see and a large Irish flag hanging over the sunrise painting on the living room wall.

David looked around in disbelief. "Why?" he all but whispered.

"Because it's St Patrick's Day," Harm said. "And we thought we should do something special."

"But why?" he repeated. "Grandma being Irish was a secret, wasn't it?"

"No," Harm said, scooping up his son and moving away from the others. "It's not a secret if it's known by three people... and your great grandmother being from Dublin was known by many more people than that."

"But you never talk about it," he said, adjusting himself on his dad's knee as Harm sat in the armchair.

"I know," he said with a nod. "It wasn't on purpose."

"So why do we never talk about grandma's family?" he asked, playing with Harm's hair.

"Because I was so caught up with the issues with my dad, and I had Grams, so I thought that was enough," he replied.

David stared at him intently for a moment before nodding. "I guess I get it," he said with a sigh. "It's sort of the same reason we only see your family and not mom's. With yours we get grandma and grandpa and they're here and there's no one on mom's side so we don't worry about them."

"That's not quite right," Mac said, walking over to the pair and claiming Harm's other knee for herself. "My family is a whole other story that we can talk about another time because today is about grandma and she has a ploughman's boxty ready for lunch for us so you need to go wash up."

David was quickly off towards the door before he stopped suddenly and came back to Harm.

"So is it really alright that I did grandma's family?" he checked. "You're not upset with me?"

"No, son," Harm said tugging him towards him and hugging him the best he could with his wife still on his knee. "Actually, I am very proud of you."

"Really? Why?" he responded.

"Because you are an observant, caring, wonderful and amazing kid and I'm so proud to be your dad," he said, kissing his son's head.

With that David ran off to prepare for his lunch with a spring in his step.

"You're right," Mac said, caressing his head. "We have an amazing son...one who is very intuitive."

"He seems very perceptive beyond his years," Harm observed, holding her tighter.

"We're going to have to be more aware of that, aren't we?" he asked, gazing at her.

"Oh yeah," she said, standing up and taking his hand. "Now, lunch...and then your mom's slide show."

"Mac, what exactly is a ploughman's boxty?" he asked, holding her hand as they headed to the dining room.

"Apparently it's a sausage, bacon, scrambled egg and Irish Cheddar cheese wrapped inside a potato pancake topped with a white sauce and it smells absolutely delicious," she said with twinkling eyes.

"All your favourite food groups," he chided, pulling out her chair for her. "But what about me?"

"You are having a vegetable boxty," said Ella, putting his plate in front of him. "It has broccoli, carrots and snow peas instead and sounds boring to me."

"Sounds delicious to me !" he said with a grin.

"Only to you, dad, only to you," she said with a laugh as she headed back to the kitchen.

The afternoon was spent with family, fun and the lilt of Irish music drifting through the house. There were lots of 'oohs', 'ahhs' and giggles watching Trish's slides of the 'olden days' as Ella called them. There were pictures of Trish as a baby, most Harm had never seen before. In all it had been a delightful day and they all made a pact that it should be an annual event.

As they drove home, Harm made a pact with himself that he would ensure that all aspects of the family history were passed down to his children and celebrated. That he would share the good and the bad, where appropriate, and encourage Mac to do the same. After all, he had spent his life focused on one aspect of his heritage and it was time to explore other parts...greener parts...to be sure, to be sure.


End file.
